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tv   NOW With Alex Wagner  MSNBC  March 19, 2012 9:00am-10:00am PDT

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brown university's wendy schiller and msnbc contributor jimmy williams. look, the self-proclaimed senator racked up zero delegates in puerto rico sunday while mitt romney got a big boost in illinois. alisha, what we've seen here is that now, mitt romney has well over 10% of his lead just from these territories. what happened in puerto rico? >> i think the big story that everyone missed was governor luis fortuna calling out his troops. he scheduled his primary the same day as this presidential be primary meaning his entire party was showing up voting for mitt romney. what you now see romney doing is saying i won puerto rico. clearly i can doing well with latinos. just because you win the island of puerto rico doesn't mean su win puerto ricans in the i 4 corridor. >> jimmy, does this victory have any legs? >> not really. puerto ricans traditionally vote
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democratic. cuban-americans traditionally vote republican. you can't vote into an island and tell people they can't speak the language and expect to carry the people. so that's a problem for rick santorum. mitt romney did what he needed to do, fine. doesn't mean a hell of a lot. now we'll go to april and d.c., maryland and some of those states and this will keep going and keep going and keep going. that's really bad for our friends on the republican side of the aisle. >> wendy, do you agree with that? he did get 20 delegates there? >> it might have some resonance with any mexican-americans that chicago's got a fairly large population of mexican-americans. if they're registered to vote and vote in the primary, that could help him. he's doing well today against santorum. every vote counts in that primary. any bounce from that solidarity would help him in chicago. >> i don't think the puerto ricans translate to mexican-americans support. it's like a 1-2% hispanic voters
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showing up in the primary. it's not a base that can offer him the oomph he needs to win the state. >> there seems to be a misnomer here in the united states that everybody here illegally is from mexico. skm latino voters or cuban-american voters or guatemalans. they'll look at you and say i'm sorry, you but i have a nationality and it's not. >> i'm talking about people living in second, third, fourth generation mexican-americans. >> the press seems to have this remarkable misnomer in that everybody latino is a mexican, and b is going to do certain things. >> don't you think democrats are risking a little bit in the fall only because latinos in general, religious catholic latinos tend not to be nearly as socially liberal. once you break that down, sure the nationality and nation of origin differs a lot. conservativism is a lot.
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>> the these numbers stay stagnant over time. 25% of latinos at a minimum break for republicans. there's 25% up for grabs. they're alienating that 25%. they don't feel they have 0 any option but to vote for barack obama. >> something we heard rick santorum say this morning on msnbc. let's take a listen. >> if i'm a lightweight, i agree. he's a heavyweight. he is a big government heavyweight. that's what his record was. if that's the kind of heavyweight that mitt romney thinks that we need, you know, then we should probably just stick with barack obama. >> now, eric, i want to go to you on this. what he was saying there on "morning joe" is basically, look, this is not true that mitt romney is actually great with the economy. really, he's a big government guy and they're going into tomorrow where rick santorum has said he can win illinois and take this thing. what do you make of that? >> they're all calling each other big government guys but
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when somebody like mitt romney gets the endorsement of eric kantor, he doesn't denounce him as a washington insider. both santorum and gingrich are influence peddlers of the first order. that's how they make their living and why they're still in the race. >> jimmy, you're a washington insider or self-reformed washington insider. >> sometimes. >> but you know, rick santorum hasn't caught too much heck for being in washington, living in washington. >> you mean living in leesburg is, virginia is, one of the trendiest suburbs? he lives in a nice big house out in leesburg and hasn't lived in pennsylvania for years. look, this is whole theory of -- eric went to it, this idea of being big government republican versus a big government democrat. they're all big government when necessary. i went back and watched rick santorum's farewell speech on the senate floor this morning. an hour and 18 minutes. that's what i did this morning.
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in my boxer shorts. i'm watching this thing and thinking i'm going to hear what he had to say knowing he just lost by 18 points. what's his last swan song in the senate. he talked about the number of earmarks he brought back to the commonwealth of pennsylvania and all the bills that his staff and he singled out the bills and his staff are doing all the work in the 16 years that he lived in washington, d.c. guess what, now he's against earmarks. he still lives in washington, d.c. and he's barely behind mitt romney and has won ten states today. >> wendy, is jimmy being fair. >> reporter: or is that what every senator has to do? >> i don't think you can represent the state of pennsylvania and not try to seek both earmarks but protection for steel and heavy industry. there's all sorts of ways of being from his state, he was a fairly responsive senator to the state of pennsylvania. the big mistake for santorum and romney is run away from the good things you did when you were in government. this is the bulk of your record. these are positives.
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and they've been just running far away from them. it seems completely noncredible. >> eric, is there anything that a conservative appealing to the tea party can say about government service, exempting the military, that will win over any folks or is it just that you can't run on your record because people in this base of the party are so anti-government? >> that's right. they've created this base. they box themselves in into a situation where they created a dynamic where they're appealing to that sliver of the party in a way that says all government is bad. that makes it impossible not only to run but to govern. if they get elected they won't be able to do the things they need to in order to make this country work. >> i want to read one quote from the romney campaign that's just out today that -- if you haven't heard this, it's a good one. to the a.p., the romney aides are likening santorum continuing to fight as basically like the black knight in monty python and the holy grail, loses his arms and legs in battle but insists
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it's only just a flesh wound. the romney campaign said tuesday's performance would extend romney's advantage even if he loses the popular vote. they are fighting money python. >> it's a hilarious analogy. i will take another -- they are irritated that santorum is in the race. calling romney out on his support on planned parenthood. they've gotten the memo they need to take romney down. the longer he's in there the longer he's launching attacks the worse it is for romney. >> april is the cruellest month. and it's going to be a remarkly cruel month for all republicans, worse for strum in my opinion because he is not going to get off this social agenda stuff. he's going to keep hammering it and pushing it. second, the primary set up for april is very good for romney
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it, definitely moderate states, more country club republicans. romney has a bigger problem. which is he's supposed to be the nominee. romney -- i was explaining to my brother over the weekend, he's like the good looking dude that go to the prom and all the girls want to dance with him but none of them want to go home with romney. that's conservatives. >> may is the time where you have to go home. >> may is going to be a bigger problem for romney because you have north carolina, west virginia, indiana may 8th all coming up on the same date. let me tell you, you don't have moderate republicans voing in those primaries. indiana race is going to be very, very hard fought especially for dick lugar who is now in big trouble in his state. if i were rick santorum, i would put my head down, shut the hell up, talk about the economy and slug it through may. romney can keep doing what he's doing but it's going to be a big nasty mess. >> santorum today st. louis actually basically in front of a reagan statue in dixon,
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illinois, making the claim that he is the guy. he's the reagan conservative. he wants to take this through it the conservative races you're talking about and onto the convention. wendy, you have historical context here. >> this is the land of lincoln. abraham lincoln had his own problems. he didn't sail into the nomination. he had struggles. he said a house divided cannot stand. these are destructive politics. santorum has to decide if i don't get the nomination, what do i want in the. >> health and human services >> somebody, this is a party without elders. these are children without grown-up leadership. >> at the prom. >> you guys are fighting too much and you're destroying us. stop fighting. >> we're going to get right to that. enough of talking about the santorum candidacy. we are going to speak directly to a spokesperson. we're going to talk about what is the santorum path forward. he did lose in puerto rico.
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we have national press secretary alice stewart joining us live next on "now." carfirmation. only hertz gives you a carfirmation. hey, this is challenger. i'll be waiting for you in stall 5. it confirms your reservation and the location your car is in, the moment you land. it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz. we want to protect the house. right. but... home security systems can be really expensive. so to save money, we actually just adopted a rescue panther. i think i'm goin-... shhh! we find that we don't need to sleep that much. there's an easier way to save. geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. when it comes to paint...
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what i'm going to do is continue to work hard to make sure that there is a conservative who is the nominee of this party. we cannot win this election. we have proven in the past when we nominate moderates, tweedledum versus tweedal de, we don't win elections. >> that was santorum this morning hitting mitt romney for not being a conservative tichb. here is a new web video that romney just released this morning of santorum's 2008 endorsement. >> it's not the campaign. this is rick santorum. i think everybody knows, nobody
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puts words into my mouth. the words out of my mouth were if you want a conservative as the nominee of this party, you must vote for mitt romney. >> joining us now from washingtoning is santorum national press secretary alice stewart. thank you for being here. >> great to be here, ari. >> what i'm going to lead with here, the question mitt romney is putting to your candidacy, releasing this video when rick santorum did say that the mitt romney was the conservative candidate. was he putting party first? what was he talking about? >> he was referring to the candidate in 2008. now we're talking about 2012. and rick santorum is the conservative candidate in this race. he is the one and is the consistent record of being true on the conservative issues. and particularly the key issues that romney is wrong on the issues. that deals with romney care, the model for obama care that deals with the central street bailouts and cap and trade. these are three big issues
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romney is on the wrong side of. we can't nominate someone who takes those issues off the table. rick has the credentials, the record and certainly the conservative principles that will carry into the future to take on barack obama. >> let me ask you then also about the negativity. we've heard a lot of talk from members of your own party about the increasingly nasty and personal elements of this campaign. to be fair, that happens a lot especially when the races get long and the issues seem narrow. what about the remarks from the santorum campaign about mitt romney's treatment of his family dog? is that important? does that really speaking to character? what are you guys doing with that? >> well, you know, the family dog is one resonates with people. if you can't be nice to your dog, who are you going to be nice to. it is unfortunate that mitt romney and the romney campaign has chosen to be so negative in
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this campaign. here he is outspending all the other candidates, five, six, seven to one. he has tremendous name i.d. and still up against the ropes in many of these states. he cannot energize the base. he is out of touch with the average american whether it comes to the comments about his wife having a couple of cars. he likes to fire people. he knows the owners of people of professional sports team, nascar teams. he's not energizing the base. that demonstrates why rick's positive message touting his conservative credentials and his policies and principles, that's what's resonating with the people and that's why he's doing as well as he is with the limited resources he does have. >> something we know today that we did not know yesterday, apparently rick santorum was fairly out of touch with the republican electorate in puerto rico. he went down there, committed time.
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the campaign according to reports in the "new york times" this weekend still has not hired a pollster but made some sort of strategic decision to send santorum down there. he did not pick up the 20 delegates that mitt romney has. that's a big blow for you guys. why didn't you have a better sense of just how poorly rick santorum was going to do in that contest? >> well, rick went down to puerto rico and was honest with the people of that territory. he said that i encourage you all to speak english in addition to spanish. that's the key. in addition to spanish. whereas mitt romney went down to them and pandered to them is, came back to the mainland and said something different. romney said don't worry where speaking english. that's not important. .rick said it's important to speak english. he was true to his conservative principles. whereas mitt romney evidently his conservative principles can be bought for 20 delegates. that's pretty sad. >> that's a pretty strong hit on romney.
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i appreciate what you're saying. i think santorum was pretty honest in his views on english only. jimmy williams wanted to get in here. your guy who i worked in the senate with him and his staff sad said the issue in the race is not about the economy. if this is about the economy, we are going to lose. this election is about bigger things. no one else talks about social issues. this morning he pushed back on joe scoreboro and was kind of upset and got unruly with the idea that they were asking him questions about social issues. you can't have it both ways. i agree your candidate is the most conservative candidate running for the nomination right now. i completely agree with that. but you can't say i'm conservative and this is all going to be about social issues and then get ticked off when the press asks you about social issues. can you reconcile those two things for the viewers and for me? i'm having a hard time jibing that. >> i appreciate the question, jimmy. i don't recall ever seeing you
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out on the campaign trail with us. that's what rick talks about. he talks about his plan to create jobs and turn the economy around and instill confidence in our economic system. he's asked about social issues repeatedly time and time again. he'll answer the questions. that's where we see oftentimes when he's responding to a question by a in eb of the press or in some situations voters who come up and ask him questions. that tends to be what the media wants to cover. rick talks time and time and time again about the important issues, creating jobs, turning the economy around, repealing obama care, issues that people talk about around the breakfast table. >> i appreciate that. but those two quotes, one was from the nation in pennsylvania and the other from the green well springs baptist church, louisiana, in the last two days. these were actual quotes by your candidate in public forums that the press is reporting and your boss said. again, i appreciate this being about the economy and about social issues. it can be about all those things. i'd like to have a wide debate
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for the presidential nomination but i think it's important that if he's going to do these kinds of things and not blame the press for his answers. his own answers. >> well, as i said, he speaks 90% of his conversations when he's out speaking are about jobs and the economy. obviously, yesterday he was at a church. it lends itself toward a more conservative issues and topics. those are the topics that people are concerned with when he's speaking in a church. his conversations when he's meeting with people, whether it be a ton hall at a meet and greet, walking through a restaurant, they're asking him about what are you going to do to create jobs and unleash american energy. and those are the issues he expands on day after day. go to rick santorum.com. you can see our ten-step made in america plan which deals with creating tax breaks for companies to help broaden their business, unleashing american energy, repealing obama care, helping families in terms of the tax burden on them.
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those are real solutions that will help restore confidence in the economy. >> alice, we are going to leave it there. i'm glad the at least a url plug in and some pushback on what you consider unfair media coverage. we do appreciate you giving us your perspective today. >> have a great day. >> after the break, we are going to talk about whether he should stay or whether he should go. newt gingrich takes yet another day off or more than a day off from the campaign trail. and shows some signs of competing in tomorrow's contest in illinois. what is the game plan? we will find all that out and the panel will weigh in next on "now." americans are always ready to work hard for a better future. since ameriprise financial was founded back in 1894, they've been committed to putting clients first. helping generations through tough times. good times. never taking a bailout. there when you need them. helping millions of americans over the centuries.
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you keep coming in third, you're not much of a frontrunner. >> what state coming up do you think you can win? >> i don't know yet. i don't know yet, brett. we're looking at a number of them. we're in sort of a halftime. louisiana is the halfway point. we're having like a football team, we're having a halftime resetting of the game plan. >> like a football team. that was newt gingrich last week refusing to call it quits. if is halftime, why is he sitting out a big part of the contest in the locker room? he had no campaign events saturday or sunday and has none scheduled today. he also won't be in illinois for tomorrow's primary. we've got to figure out what is the game plan here. er eric we've got a candidate who has been to illinois seven times now. now that we're getting close to election day, he disappears. what do you make of this? >> mentioned the monthy python analogy earlier. it doesn't apply to santorum as much as it does to gingrich. he keeps coming in third time
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and time again, who hasn't been able to secure any races and yet he keeps going. you have to ask why. now he's not going at full steam. for one thing, it's taking a toll on him. he's tired. he's flagging. this is an arduous process and he's running out of steam and i think trying to recharge his batteries. >> the flesh wound analogy was a thing that was applied here on msnbc by ezra klein to gingrich. apparently the romney folks picked it up whether they knew what they were doing now or not. >> nobody wants to dance with him or take him home. he's ego is clearly bruised because santorum he thinks is an intellectual lightweight. is he does believe he could go to tampa and convince people he should be the nominee. >> the irony the person he's helping the most by staying in is mitt romney. if he were out of the race, there's no question that santorum would be winning more primary contests and tarnishing romney's status as a frontrunner even more than he already is.
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>> that's the question that plays out going into tampa, who can be work together, who has actual base support 0 maybe make a play at the convention. coming up, an army staff sergeant faces charges for that terrible shooting of killing 17.civilians. is it time to revisit how rerecruit and deploy our soldiers next on here and now. for a hot dog cart. my mother said, "well, maybe we ought to buy this hot dog cart and set it up someplace." so my parents went to bank of america. they met with the branch manager and they said, "look, we've got this little hot dog cart, and it's on a really good corner. let's see if we can buy the property." and the branch manager said, "all right, i will take a chance with the two of you." and we've been loyal to bank of america for the last 71 years.
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that's what they tell us a legal golf bag can hold. and while that leaves a little room for balls and tees, it doesn't leave room for much else. there's no room left for deadlines or conference calls. not a single pocket to hold the stress of the day, or the to-do list of tomorrow. only 14 clubs pick up the right one and drive it right down the middle of pure michigan. your trip begins at michigan.org. staff sergeant robert bales will meet face to face with his lawyers for the first time today as the u.s. army prepares to file charges against the american soldier accused of killing 16 afghan civilians. meanwhile, new details are emerging about beals' history and his time in the military. joining us now from washingtoning is miken o han lon fellow at the brookings institution and the author of
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"bending history, barack obama's foreign policy." thanks for being here today. >> nice to be with you. i want to begin actually with a statement we have from paul rye cough from the afghanistan in sflirk veteran group. take a listen to this. >> is it good for america to have such a cleavage that exists between our population hog serves and everyone else? this is really unprecedented. it's about time we starred having this discussion. the commander in chief is the man to lead on that. he has to ask the american people if this is how we want to run our country, not just our wars. >> let me put that question to you, mr. oh han who lon. what do you think? is this how we're running the war, our country? is this burden being distributed if the right way? >> well, i think to quote a four-star general who i'm friends with, a retired four star, never have we as a country asked so much of so few for so long. and i know the beals tragedy is bringing this conversation to the forefront, but what i've
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been watching over the years is things that have to do more with the basic well-being of the force in terms of divorce rates, suicide rates, ptsd as we all pay attention to, and i think we have to recognize that we have really pushed this force very, very hard. that's something for all of us to wrestle with. i don't think, however, that necessitates at this moment radically altering our afghanistan strategy for that reason primarily. the stress on the force on balance i think is a little less now than it was three and four and five years ago. now, there is a cumulative effect, obviously. i don't want to in way trivialize the strains. while other indicators are much higher than we have liked they have started to decline. i don't think we should rush out of a war where we have a decent chance of some stability primarily based on this argument. if there are other reasons too, weentence rate of
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that in vietnam soldiers was about 17%. and it's up now i mean to 20% in this conflict. you've been in the region i believe in the last couple months. you're saying things seem to getting better. what are also the factors that have made this a war that apparently according to those army sticks according to the army made this war have a greater psychological toll on our troops than vietnam? >> let me clarify. i do think some parts of afghanistan are getting better. i am not here as a big rah-rah proponent of how things are going over all. it's been tough. we're trying to make the best of a very difficult wags that has been more frustrate than i would have liked. we will have seen big progress in the south. we've seen a stabilization of the situation in kabul and the north and west. we still have big problems with the east and corruption, still have big problems with the pakistanis. very much a mixed bag. in terms of the overall
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incidence of ptsd in this war versus vietnam, i don't know that the statistics are completely comparable because of course, the diagnostics are much better now. we obviously have one big difference which is the frequent repeated deployments that we're putting our forces through now. in vietnam, we had a much less capable force because a lot of people were going in for one year and getting out permanently. that's probably why we fought the war so much less effectively. at a personal individual level, the soldiers and marines are being asked to do a heck of a lot. >> part of what you're saying diverges from the view of the main opponents to president obama. i want to play sound for you that you can hear from brand new statements on afghanistaning from mitt romney and rick santorum. >> if this is the game plan, if the game plan is we're leaving irrespective of whether we're going to succeed or not, why are we still there? let's either commit to winning or let's get out. >> what's happening right now is
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an example of failed leadership. the president put out a specific timetable for withdrawal of our troops. a timetable for the end of combat operations. this is leading by mr. karzai to take action that's self-preservation in nature. >> mr. o han lon, i know you're nonpartisan in your analysis, but i got to tell you, you listen to those quotes. it doesn't sound very legitimate because there isn't a substantive alternative being offered. there's just a blanket statement of so-called failed leadership, to quote mr. romney, governor romney there about the president. a president who by the way has significantly increased troop levels there, made a lot of hard decisions whether you agree with them or not. do you think these are legitimate critiques from both opponent to the president? >> i do think primary politics bring out a certain kind of rhetoric. i'm not going to stand by those comments of either romney or senator santorum. i do think if you look at the overall history of obama foreign
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policy on afghanistan as we try to in the book, what you see is a pretty strong policy. the president constantly sending a message he was not going to let this become his vietnam or become a quagmire. even as he announced a big troop increase back in 2009 at west point, he said it would be temporary. that's just an example. but i think there was a certain benefit to that. he pushed it a little too far in the sense that he sent messages to afghan and pakistani friends that were hedging, were not totally committed, we're not totally in. he also told them listen, don't count on us to be there forever. you have to pick up your end of the bargain as well and he sent a message to americans which is yes, i'm tripling forces for a specific purpose during a specific time period. so there was a logic to what the president did. on balance in the book, we argue the messaging was not as clear or circuit as it should have been. but i think the logic of the overall policy is pretty good. >> i want to bring in eric here. mr. o han lon is talking about
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message which can also mean diplomacy. superdescribing recent rolling stone articles that look at the pr essence of mr. beals' position basically with seal team six. tell us about that and any responses you have. >> we did a very troubling story on a group of soldiers that called themselves the kill team, u.s. soldiers in afghanistan who went out and systematically hunted down afghan civilians, killed them and then mutilated their bodies taking body parts atrophy if is, in one case the first victim was a 15-year-old boy. it just so happens this is platoon is from the same brigade as sergeant bales and was based out of the same base in the united states, joint base lewis-mcchord. we found photographic evidence at the time that suggested that these crimes by the kill team went beyond then one platoon. the pentagon tried to portray it as a rogue platoon much as they're saying is the sergeant now is a rogue soldier. but the evidence really suggested that it went farther than that and that other
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platoons may have been involved. there's a real question to be answered here. did that culture of that particular brigade which was very gung h oled by some commanders who really had some very racist attitudes towards the afghan people, did that play a part in this? we don't know yet, obviously, but i haven't heard those questions being posed. >> thank you. we are out of time. i want to thank you, mr. o han lon for joining us on a very important topic. the book "bending history, barack obama's foreign policy." after the break, we've got a great segment looking at occupy wall street which just marked its six-month anniversary with dozens of protests and arrests here in new york. we will take a look at the movement's impact all of that coming up next on "now." [ todd ] hello? hello todd. just calling to let you know
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york city on saturday and this was the scene as the police swooped in and arrested 73 protesters after going basically into the streets and seeing that happen. now, we've seen that occupy wall street has sort of gone underground for the winter. the question we want to look at right now is can the movement regain some momentum this spring. joining me is dorian, assistant professor of political science and a fellow at the roosevelt institute. i am an unpaid advisory member of the institute. what we want to talk about is something you have written about here, which is what is occupy wall street doing and did they advance their goals with this reignited protest this weekend in new york? >> one thing to keep in mind with occupy wall street, from the very beginning to even this weekend is that all social movements and occupy is a social movement at this point, all social movements interact with
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the players. one of the things that happened this weekend was the police were violent just like they were six months and four months ago. so a lot of what occupy does will depend on their interaction with police in cities across the country. did they sans their goals? that is the big question that is open in the sense of they've been organizing all winter around several issues, the mortgage crisis, money and politics, they have a lot of things planned, and this american spring and so it remains to be seen how effective they'll be at implementing these campaigns to take money out of politics to deal with banks, et cetera. >> we made a bit of a list here, not an exclusive list. they've shifted the debate to income inequality. drew explicit reaction from president obama, occupy impacted to some degree the millionaires tax debate here in new york. many people think they had an effect on thwarting atm fees. they're looking at protests for may day. they want to refor wall street
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in a fundamental way and want to eliminate the impact of money on elections which people will tell you is worse than ever. dorian, is that list of unfinished business too long, in other words, should they be focused on a single thing? >> that's for occupy to decide. what's interesting about that list is that for all the criticism that occupy faced about what's the agenda, that's a pretty clear agenda. it's all around economic inequality and money in politics. so for large groups of people who are part of occupy who are going to be protesting this spring, i think the agenda is clear at this point. they're not just complaining about the issues. they have a proactive agenda to do something. >> can i ask you instinct? you're a political scientist. social movements need leaders. typically the note of successful social movements have had charismatic leaders. going back to the 19th century. how does occupy wall street move forward and accomplish its
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goals? getting arrested is not going to cut it. who is going to lead this movement to the next phase? is there anybody you can identify that can be that kind of leader? >> that's a great question. i think social movements of the 20th century had leaders. we're in uncharted territory in the 21st century. fact they're leaderless means that leaders can't be targeted in the same way as civil rights leaders or feminist leaders were or taken out in the case of the black panthers in the '60s. >> you talk about the concept of the empty signy fire. the idea that occupy started out so broad and literally empty of ingredients that people were able to attach whatever meaning they wanted and get excited about it. the terry party was like that, too. it started out talking about mortgages and government aid and morphed into all sorts of things and was powerful and growing. jimmy williams, i want to bring you in as someone who's done all kinds of work where you need a
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message. you are not buying what dorian said. >> john heilemann wrote about the leaders behind the curtain. >> there are leaders there. >> absolutely, no doubt about it. the guy that actually -- the brain trust behind this thing is a former wall street trader named vald. this guy's big. >> he is really big. >> he's big in occupy. >> i don't buy that he's big. >> he's big within occupy. that's the problem. most people in main street america have no idea who the hell that guy is even after reading the article in new york magazine. most people in iowa don't have a clue what occupy is for, despite what we just put up, despite what they've been for the entire six months, what are they for? not whats, what. no one can tell us. >> i don't think that's true. so many thousands if not millions of people got involved in some way means they are fed up. the tea party wasn't for
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something for a while either. >> they were against big government. what is occupy for or against? >> against inequality and money in politics. the question is, what are the solutions to deal with those core problems they've identified. there's a diversity of solutions. >> one of the things that's interesting is occupy is not just a set of agendas. it's also experimenting with the whole idea of leadership and what a leadership model looks like in the 21st century. there are two things that changed. the civil rights movement early on, very con tensious. leadership battles, models, the protesters talked about themselves as forming a beloved community that would model a whole different kind of interracial society. we just remember king. the other thing is that occupy itself is struggling with these issues is internally but realize that the media landscape has changed. in the old days you feeded a clear leader in order to engage the media in telling a narrative. now we have social media tapping
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into a whole kind of viable message that's very, very different in nature where they can get the word out without relying on the mainstream media in the way protests have had to. >> an organization like wikileaks ultimately has a leader who turned out to be problematic. it has an organizational structure and an idea about distributing information that could long outlive the leader. there are many people who feel wikileaks would be better off without this particular leader. dorian, isn't there also the idea you're keeping some baggage off the agenda for a while and letting the agenda speak? >> i think it's interesting to see where this goes. this is -- no one's tried to have a social movement without key identifiable leaders. let me say one other thing. this is six months in. if we think of 20th centurient social movements, it took the civil rights movements at least 14 years. it took the women's movement a
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decade. now things are speeding up today. but let's just make sure that we don't impose too much of what we think the movement should be at the six-month mark. >> dorian, thanks for being here and sharing some of your thoughts with us. we'd love to have you back anytime. coming up, we have peyton manning in a reported item looks like he maybe picked his new team. we're going to tell you where he's headed next in what now. as a chef we are always committed to our suppliers... you know, those farmers, those foragers, those fishermen... for me, it's really about building this extraordinary community. american express is passionate about the same thing. they're one of those partners that i would really rely on whether it's finding new customers, or, a new location for my next restaurant. when we all come together, my restaurants, my partners, and the community amazing things happen. to me, that's the membership effect.
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welcome back. time for what are now. there are new reports that peyton manning will sign with the denver broncos according to espn and nfl.com. we'll go right to our resident football expert, wendy schiller. >> had all new england is groaning massively. we thought tom brady can still
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be as sent dant. so you got to figure peyton manning must have good years left in him. it's a big risk. elway was supposed to be tutoring tebow. it's kind of still sticking with the old celebrity and not tutoring the new celebrity. we've got to see if manning can still throw. i got to tell you, go with john elway's judgment here. >> jimmy? >> tebow can't stay if peyton manning comes. we'll see who he gets traded to. >> we're going to turn to one other big story over the weekend. jason russell, one of the co-creators of that kony 2012 video that you've probably seen at least once is undergoing a mental evaluation. according to san diego police, these are initial reports, it looks like he was basically found on the street, video has emerged of him naked and having some kind of basically a
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meltdown. i want to go here and discuss the fact that this was a video kony ta excited people. 100 million people watched it over $5 million raised. it was fast, exciting. what we're seeing is this was not a well-known organization. an organization where only 32% of the money that you give goes to direct services. the rest goes to staff travel. now this terrible incident. did we move too fast as sort of a viable society on this one? >> this goes backing to what we were discussing earlier about the rise in social media. you have avenues to get the word out in a whole new kind of way. but it also means these people aren't trained at journalists, they aren't professionals and don't get everything right. there were things it appears in that video that were distorted or wrong, not that kony is a good guy. but it looks like the filmmaker really took some of the attacks on the film personally, maybe broke under that stress. it was a bad weekend for this kind of out of the box
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journalism. this american life, public radio show was forced to retract an entire episode based on a one-man show about apple in which some of the same kind of distortions took place in an effort to tell the story, in an emotional and powerful way, these kind of citizen journalists overstepped the bounds and got caught doing it. >> let's talk about the activism. alisha, should people want their money back if they will donated to this organization, invisible children? >> i'm not one to say. that's for everyone to decide for themselves. on the whole, this was good. it brought attention to a region that doesn't get popular attention. on the whole, i think this was a fine thing. i don't think it will be undone by what has now come to light. >> that's a story we'll have to keep an eye on. a lot of important elements there. hopefully it will work out for the best for the founder. i want to thank again eric, alisha, jimmy. that is all for now. please tune in again tomorrow. alex wagner will be back in the
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seat. noon east eastern, 9:00 a.m. pacific. till then you can find alex at facebook.com/now with alex. andrea mitchell reports" is next. >> thanks so much. coming up here, we have eva longoria on her new role with the obama campaign. we'll be talking also about the dilemma in afghanistan. elizabeth miller just back from her trip top afghanistaning with defense secretary leon panetta. and the birth control battle, how that is turning into a fund-raisinging bonanza for democrats. stay with us. a little bird told me about a band... ♪ an old man shared some fish stories... ♪ oooh, my turn. ♪ she was in paris, but we talked for hours... everyone else buzzed about the band. there's a wireless mind inside all of us. so, where to next? ♪
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